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afrol.com, 3 October - Guinean officials claim that their army drove back an armed group responsible for the Friday attacks on the border region with Liberia, BBC reports. Violent clashes over the weekend between Guinean soldiers and armed groups operating from across southern borders had left 77 people dead. Most of the affected were Liberian and Sierra Leonean refugees seeking protection in this area. An "alarming number" of fighters firing guns and wielding machetes burst into villages near Macenta on Friday, killing 67 people, police said. On Saturday at Farmoreya, an armed group battled all day with Guinean troops, leaving 10 people dead and police headquarters gutted by fire. Three Guinean government soldiers died in the fighting. These clashes bring to 200 the total number of people killed since the incursions began on 1 September. Guinea accuses Liberia, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leonean rebels and rebel Guinean soldiers of deliberately creating turmoil in the border region. Experts have warned of a spillover of the conflict in the neighbour countries into Guinea, and the attacks have been assessed to be part of a Liberian initiative to achieve just that. Some regard the incursions as a coordinated effort by Liberian President Charles Taylor to retaliate against Guinea for providing asylum to Liberian dissidents and armed groups that have allegedly attacked Liberia. Others speculate that some of these border clashes are the product of local business transactions gone awry between RUF rebels and Guineans believed to be involved in diamond trafficking and other illegal cross-border activities. AP reports that Sierra Leone's vice president said Saturday that West African peacekeeping troops may soon be deployed along the borders. Guinea accuses refugees of being behind dissident attacks on Guinean villages, while Liberia counters that a rebel group uses rear bases in Guinea to stage attacks on northern Liberia. The Independent adds that Liberia claims Guinea is overly tolerant of rebel organisers that plan raids from within the safety of Guinean refugee camps. Guinea says Liberia's rebel-refugees have exported their war. Guinea is strongly affected by the crisis in Sierra Leone. It hosts more refugees than any other African country, including nearly 100,000 refugees from Liberia and an estimated 330,000 from Sierra Leone. Its tradition of relative hospitality toward refugees has eroded as incursions from Sierra Leone and Liberia have increased. A majority of the refugees are in a string of camps in the Guéckédou and Macenta region.
Source: Based on UNHCR and international press
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